Entries in Giorgio Liberto
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For many years, Caccamo was a model city of the Mafia. The charming mountain village east of Palermo was run with the kind of criminal efficiency that only an iron-fisted boss can demand. Despite the thirty seats occupied by the City Council’s deputies, the one that counted was unelected: an easy-chair reserved for Don Peppino Panzeca.

Mico GeraciIn the mid-twentieth century, all of Caccamo’s public moneys ran through Don Peppino’s fingers, as did the town’s permit process. Those wishing to run for office or buy land or open a shop sought his approval. He settled marital disputes and baptized babies by no one’s authority but his own. Mafia murders were what happened far away from his placid dominion.

A succession of crime bosses continued to enforce the peace in Caccamo, leading to Nino Giuffrè, a former professor at the town’s technical school who joined the Mafia in 1980. Giuffrè was quickly befriended by the powerful capo Bernardo Provenzano, a civilized Dr. Jeckyll from Corleone at odds with his Hyde-like partner, Totò Riina.

Giuffrè was soon given a seat on the Mafia Commission where he and Provenzano represented the pacifist wing in discreet opposition to Riina’s sanguinary modus. After Riina’s arrest, Giuffrè became Provenzano’s right-hand “Manuzza,” so nicknamed for his deformed hand.